2-bard parties

[Bajaratt]

So in otherwords

A white mage that remembers they have Regen III.

But that's not rappa...

For my bard, I have two ballad macros. One only plays Ballad 2, which is usually what I use for cannons or situations where I might be pressed for time. The other plays both songs for when I don't have to leave asap to pull or deal with sleeps or other stuff.

 

[Stouter]

I've had parties on my bard where the melee were killing so fast that I was barely able to keep up ballad 2 half the time, and the whm rarely had MP issues while keeping 4 hastes up.

I've also had a merit party where the rdm ran out of MP, converted, and then ran out of MP again on one imp.

A good healer doesn't have infinite MP no matter what, a large part of it is how good the rest of the party is. However in the right setup the good healer keeps up hastes and has infinite MP, while the mediocre healer runs low and lets hastes drop.

Yes you can get the same experience with 1 bard or 2, but here's the major difference. With only 1 bard, to get the top numbers you need a great bard, working their butt off. It gets exhaustive, and you're lucky to have a 2 hour party with that bard. With 2 bards, only one of them has to be good, and they don't have to be exceptional, aren't nearly as busy, and will last a lot longer before burning out.

 

[Vilurum]

Yes you can get the same experience with 1 bard or 2, but here's the major difference. With only 1 bard, to get the top numbers you need a great bard, working their butt off. It gets exhaustive, and you're lucky to have a 2 hour party with that bard. With 2 bards, only one of them has to be good, and they don't have to be exceptional, aren't nearly as busy, and will last a lot longer before burning out.

I'll grant this point. It's why I only merit like once or twice a month.

 

[Itachiii]

The thing with 2 bards is you have can keep all buffs on melee and mages up ALL the time EASILY. This includes both songs and haste. You have that back up healer for your WHM or RDM so all your melees stay in the white pretty much all the time unless someone takes a nasty TP move. And you have that extra sleeper so you don't have any mobs running around whacking away at people while the puller is out looking for more mobs.

2 bards makes things easier for everyone and it makes your 3 DDs fight as if they were 4. Both setups whether it's one bard or 2 can get chain infinity but it's alot harder to miss chain in a 2 bard party than a one bard party.

 

[Zethren]

I think the biggest problem with 2 Bard Parties is...

Finding 2 Bards, kekekeke.

 

[Stouter]

I think the biggest problem with 2 Bard Parties is...

Finding 2 Bards, kekekeke.

It's easier to find 2 decent bards than to find one great bard, you'll end up with a longer party with 2 bards 9/10 times, and the same or more exp/hr.

 

[Tomasello]

I've had parties on my bard where the melee were killing so fast that I was barely able to keep up ballad 2 half the time, and the whm rarely had MP issues while keeping 4 hastes up.

I've also had a merit party where the rdm ran out of MP, converted, and then ran out of MP again on one imp.

A good healer doesn't have infinite MP no matter what, a large part of it is how good the rest of the party is. However in the right setup the good healer keeps up hastes and has infinite MP, while the mediocre healer runs low and lets hastes drop.

I don't think this can be stressed enough. Even the most decked out healer, rdm or whm, is going to run out of MP if the melees suck. The two biggest problems I run into in shitty parties is:

A) The melee are just too damn slow at killing the mobs. The longer they take the more they drain even the best healer's resources. This can be caused by the job their playing, skill of the player, gimpage gear, or most of the time some combination thereof.

B) They don't use Utsusemi properly. Even a War/Nin with -evasion should be able to block 6-9 hits before taking damage. Too many suck asses either don't cast their utsusemi properly to have them overlap, usually because they only bothered to get their /nin to 37 and never learned to blink tank. Or only cast shadows when they run out therefore getting interupted to fuck and becoming a walking mp sponge.

 

[Vilurum]

Actually, probably the biggest offender is an extreme unwillingness to cast Ichi because it takes longer to cast, takes away from their damage output for that much longer, and therefore makes them seem worse on their all-important parses.

Personally when I merit as WHM, my least favorite melees (to put it gently) are the ones who are constantly going on about how awesomely they're parsing while sucking away my MP all the while because they never use Ichi (and due to their oh-so-awesome damage output, often have hate).

In fact, in general as a healer I hate the parties where the melees are more concerned about topping each other in parses than fighting efficiently.

 

[jamal]

Actually, probably the biggest offender is an extreme unwillingness to cast Ichi because it takes longer to cast, takes away from their damage output for that much longer, and therefore makes them seem worse on their all-important parses.

Personally when I merit as WHM, my least favorite melees (to put it gently) are the ones who are constantly going on about how awesomely they're parsing while sucking away my MP all the while because they never use Ichi (and due to their oh-so-awesome damage output, often have hate).

In fact, in general as a healer I hate the parties where the melees are more concerned about topping each other in parses than fighting efficiently.

Ichi's lower recast makes it amazing as well.
I've mentioned this a number of times, but to reiterrate what I've found for best party performance if you're having hate on you a good majority of the time:
Have :ichi on to start fights. Count shadows (we can all count to two) and recast :ichi with no fear of overwrite. This way you have :Ni ready when the mobs ws occurs (or a THF Triple attack). If still holding hate, you'll no doubt have a shadow or two drained from the :ni, so as the mob reaches 5-10% (get a feel) begin :ichi recast and kill remaining shadows when its at 50% spellcast so that right as the mob dies, your :ichi is ready and you're on the next mob.
The key to this is the timing...once you have it down your party will work more efficiently as a whole, which is the bottom line. NIN type Mamools can be done with the same concept, just waiting slightly longer to begin :ichi recast after engaging. First attack round takes away your first two shadows, watch for them to begin movement on the second attack round and immediately :ichi.
Time ws's with shadows accordingly as well. If :ichi is available when ws'ing, ws with 2 shadows remaining and immediately recast :ichi after the short delay when you can't cast. If :ichi isn't available, time it out so you won't get 'drubbed' while ws'ing.

 

[Draculea]

.....

 

[DarkMagnus]

When I pted on rdm with melee or blms that would always get BTFU just for high numbers; I would let them almost die before curing and they learned very quickly that a mp sponge aint gonna happen while im main cure.

 

[Jojojo]

Had my first 2-bard party today, and I wasn't thoroughly impressed. We couldn't seem to do enough damage, and I kept getting hit with ballad by the stationary bard.

I'd be like "Quit hitting me with ballad" and he would say "No." I guess the problem wasn't having two bards, but having a certain bard in the party.

 

[Bajaratt]

I don't think this can be stressed enough. Even the most decked out healer, rdm or whm, is going to run out of MP if the melees suck. The two biggest problems I run into in shitty parties is:

A) The melee are just too damn slow at killing the mobs. The longer they take the more they drain even the best healer's resources. This can be caused by the job their playing, skill of the player, gimpage gear, or most of the time some combination thereof.

B) They don't use Utsusemi properly. Even a War/Nin with -evasion should be able to block 6-9 hits before taking damage. Too many suck asses either don't cast their utsusemi properly to have them overlap, usually because they only bothered to get their /nin to 37 and never learned to blink tank. Or only cast shadows when they run out therefore getting interupted to fuck and becoming a walking mp sponge.

You missed some key words in his post that completely differentiate what he said from what you think he said. You seem to have just seen "bard" "melees" and "healer running out of mp" and assumed he was talking about crappy melees. Here's what you missed:

I've had parties on my bard where the melee were killing so fast that I was barely able to keep up ballad 2 half the time, and the whm rarely had MP issues while keeping 4 hastes up.

I've also had a merit party where the rdm ran out of MP, converted, and then ran out of MP again on one imp.

A good healer doesn't have infinite MP no matter what, a large part of it is how good the rest of the party is. However in the right setup the good healer keeps up hastes and has infinite MP, while the mediocre healer runs low and lets hastes drop.

He's not talking about a shitty damage dealers like you're talking about, he's saying they're so good, he doesn't have time to cast ballad before he needs to pull again. I've been in a few of those parties and usually I have to resort to deliberately linking an extra mob or two, sleep them all and then ballad the mage.

 

[Vilurum]

Had my first 2-bard party today, and I wasn't thoroughly impressed. We couldn't seem to do enough damage, and I kept getting hit with ballad by the stationary bard.

I'd be like "Quit hitting me with ballad" and he would say "No." I guess the problem wasn't having two bards, but having a certain bard in the party.

Pssst, this is the sort of case where you drop names.

Unless, of course, you were standing on top of the healer at the time, in which case it's pretty daft to expect the bard to ballad the healer and not hit you too.

 

[Sumer]

He's not talking about a shitty damage dealers like you're talking about, he's saying they're so good, he doesn't have time to cast ballad before he needs to pull again. I've been in a few of those parties and usually I have to resort to deliberately linking an extra mob or two, sleep them all and then ballad the mage.

I have to agree with Bajaratt. I have been in single bard merit parties, in which I literally had to link mobs and sleep them all in order to feed the DD. Whm had no issue with mp.

With good DD they bounce hate and kill the mob so fast that the bard is really just pulling, sleeping, and making sure the DD have thier songs, while keeping ballad 2 up on healer.

With excellent DD we even kept the same chain for the entire party. forgot what chain we hit... Rappa do you remember? Had issues with ppl losing power and our whm kept getting disconnected.